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We got our toddler (S. – Age 3.5) a bicycle a few months ago. We thought she would be thrilled.

Instead, because she didn’t know how to ride it perfectly- struggled with pedaling a bit and took a spill, she has basically refused to ride it. The sparkling, purple (ridiculously girly!) princess bike has literally sat in our garage for months. I would beg, threaten and cajole but could not get her on the thing no matter how hard I tried. Every attempt was an exercise in tears so finally, I let it go.

It has been driving me nuts.

A week ago, we went to the park and she saw her friend R. – Age 5 ride up the park on his bike. She didn’t mention anything to me about it but I know she noticed. I didn’t say anything either.

Two evenings ago I suggested to her perhaps she and I could take her bike out and try it before bed. She looked at me for a moment, the cocked her head sideways and said: “Well, I guess I could try.”

This morning that same kid rode that princess bike over a mile. What had started out as walking the dog S. – Age 3.5 turned into a quest, and I had not the heart to deny her. Accompanied by myself and our pug, she pedaled and pedaled and pedaled, and when she fell jumped right back up.

I had tears in my eyes. I am not sure if it was just pride – I think there may have been some (read: tons) of

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We are blessed with much fun and laughter in our house: pre-baby, and even pre-marriage, we brought in a crazy pug puppy, and he has been making us laugh ever since.

He was, truly, my first baby, all 2 pounds (now 20) of him. If you aren’t familiar with pugs, they are a kind of crazy breed and do all sorts of neat things: the head tilt, the bunny run (tucking their tail under their belly and running like mad), and are pretty entertaining overall. We named him Loki the Wonder Pug, after the Norse God of Mischief. It’s appropriate.

Today, realizing the pug smelled a bit like a sewer and it could no longer wait, started getting the tub ready for the stinky fur ball.
Loki, though generally agreeable, is not a big fan of baths. It requires a lot of work to keep him in the tub and get him clean without him escaping. Today with my arms elbow-deep in fur and lather, my daughter (who loves baths) decided to take advantage of my distraction and jump in the tub with him: right in with the dirty dog water.

Rather than yell at her I decided to be philosophical: even though she was now going to also need a bath after jumping in the hair-pool, at least she couldn’t be drawing on walls or something. Besides, it was kinda funny.

Anyway, if you aren’t lucky enough to have an obnoxious pug, I thought I would share some of his post-tub drying methodologies: